Cherwell, Oxford (2025)

21/07/2025

Before I arrived at this university, a family friend gave me a book of photos of the Oxford of old. One picture, titled ‘The Encaenia procession outside Brasenose College, 1908’, intrigued me: what was this mysteriously named ceremony which passed my future college each year?

Wikipedia furnished me with the basics (as for so many underwhelming tutorial essays in the years to come). Encaenia, from the Greek for ‘festival of renewal’, is the University’s honorary degrees award ceremony, when the dignitaries of Oxford come together to honour those whom it has deemed worthy. My thirst for knowledge satisfied, I promptly forgot all about it. As, it seems, did the rest of the University and city, if indeed they knew about it in the first place.

You might have the impression that I think Encaenia a rather irrelevant performance, an unnecessary damp squib of a parade in today’s world of instant communication and slimmed down ceremony. You would be wrong. I find much to be praised in these ancient festivities. Few, if any, other occasions bring together every aspect of Oxford life in the same way.

🖊️ Billy Arber

Image Credit: David Hays for Cherwell

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16/07/2025

Elite college students can’t read. The university wage premium has significantly declined. The young are unable to fulfil the requirements of an intensive academic degree, and even if they can, the job market doesn’t want them to. So they shouldn’t bother. So goes the story.

These arguments are constantly made, splashing across the pages of nationals and even this very newspaper. Spending three years studying a degree – especially a humanities degree – is said to be a frivolous waste of time, money, and resources. The expansion of universities has supposedly distorted the supply of skilled labour and created a foolish social pressure to study rather than do something practical.

In a world which is – and always has been – plagued with suffering, it’s easy to think of an arts degree as nothing more than a fruitless pleasure. But these arguments – and the endless anti-intellectual discourse that plagues all sides of the political spectrum – overlook a simple response: that education and academic study just are intrinsically valuable.

🖊️ Morien Robertson

Image Credit: Zoe Grace for Cherwell

Have an opinion on the points raised in this article? Comment down below or send your 150 word letter to [email protected] to see your response in our next print!

Read the full article online at cherwell.org

04/07/2025

Calling all photographers, illustrators, video editors, podcasters, and more: Creative Team applications open now!

To apply, email [email protected] by July 16 with any relevant experience and ideas.

02/07/2025

Students at Brasenose College expressed their frustration last week after scenes for a forthcoming sequel to My Fault: London were shot on the College’s grounds. At the time of filming some students were still sitting their preliminary exams.

Filming began on Monday 23rd June, with production crews descending on key locations including the Old Quad, Porters’ Lodge, and Brasenose Hall.

The film crew occupied the college Tuesday 24th June, with the Hall closed for filming between 7.30am and 11.30am. As a result the College’s breakfast service was reduced to takeaway only. Several staircases and public access routes were affected, causing what one student described as “a surreal and noisy detour” on the way to the library.

Thursday brought further disruption, with the college library closed between 7am and 8.30am. Compounding the disruption was a 120-student Literature Study Day scheduled at the same time – which saw students, extras, and visitors gathered on Old Quad, something normally forbidden. Scenes filmed in Deer Park and New Quad also led to intermittent delays.

🖊️ Peter Chen

Image credit: Peter Chen for Cherwell

Read the full story online at Cherwell.org

01/07/2025

Not been following the news this term? Check out our illustrators' guide to what happened this Trinity.

If you like what you see, keep an eye out for creative team applications, coming later this week.

Image Credit: Archie Johnston and Selina Chen for Cherwell.

30/06/2025

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27/06/2025

Hertford College is facing backlash from students following a request that the Middle Common Room (MCR) removes a Pride flag from its window. Students have also criticised the College’s limited display of the LGBTQ+ flag above Hertford this Pride month, flying it for only two days to mark Oxford’s Pride parade on 7th June.
Speaking to Cherwell, the College’s MCR President said that the flag was raised in the common room “to show solidarity and commitment to its student community”, who felt let down by the College after it failed to consistently fly the Pride flag. She added that: “As MCR President, I was emailed on Friday 20th June 2025, a couple of days after the flag was first displayed, and asked to take the flag down on the basis of a purported policy.”

In response to the College’s request, the MCR President asked for a copy of the policy. But to the President’s “tremendous disappointment” no such copy was provided.

🖊️ Cherwell news

Image Credit: Arina Makarina for Cherwell

Read the full story online at Cherwell.org

27/06/2025

Hertford College is facing backlash from students following a request that the Middle Common Room (MCR) removes a Pride flag from its window. Students have also criticised the College’s limited display of the LGBTQ+ flag above Hertford this Pride month, flying it for only two days to mark Oxford’s Pride parade on 7th June.

Speaking to Cherwell, the College’s MCR President said that the flag was raised in the common room “to show solidarity and commitment to its student community”, who felt let down by the College after it failed to consistently fly the Pride flag. She added that: “As MCR President, I was emailed on Friday 20th June 2025, a couple of days after the flag was first displayed, and asked to take the flag down on the basis of a purported policy.”

In response to the College’s request, the MCR President asked for a copy of the policy. But to the President’s “tremendous disappointment” no such copy was provided.

Hertford explained to Cherwell that staff requested the flag be removed from the MCR’s window because of a “long-standing principle that no flags (or indeed any form of advertisements, signage, temporary lighting, or similar) should be mounted over windows, or in public / shared areas”.

🖊️ Cherwell News

Image Credit: Arina Makarina for Cherwell

Read the full story online at Cherwell.org

25/06/2025

The University of Oxford awarded nine honorary degrees at its annual Encaenia awards ceremony today. Among the recipients were British athlete and Olympian Sir Mo Farah; Irish author and academic Professor Colm Tóibín; broadcaster and parliamentarian Lord Melvyn Bragg; and BBC journalist Clive Myrie. Dame Jacina Ardern, the former Prime Minister of New Zealand, also received an honorary degree but was absent from the Encaenia ceremony.

The ceremony took place in the Sheldonian Theatre with a procession beginning at the gate of Exeter College, moving through the Bodleian Library Quadrangle. The honorands followed senior members of the University, stopping en route at the Divinity School to sign the University’s Honorary Degrees book.

The other honorands included Professor Serhii Plokhii, Professor Timothy Snyder, Professor Robert S Langer, and Professor Erwin Neher.

The Chancellor of Oxford, Lord William Hague, and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Irene Tracey, were amongst senior members of staff leading the procession. Lord Hague opened the ceremony and admitted the honorary degrees to the recipients.

🖊️ Conor Walsh and David Hays

Image Credit: David Hays for Cherwell

Read the full story online at Cherwell.org

21/06/2025

Oxford University has released its Annual Admissions Statistical Report, providing information about undergraduate applications, offers, and admissions. It reveals a mixed picture, particularly between colleges and subjects, on areas including socioeconomic background, ethnicity, school type, and gender.

At a university level, it is broadly one of improvement, with the highest percentage of Black and Minority Ethnic students (30.8%) since the first report was released in 2018, and the number of students entitled to free school meals increasing to 8.1%. There were some setbacks however, with the percentage of UK students from state schools declining for the fourth year in a row to 66.2%.

Notably, this was the first year where applicants had the option of selecting either ‘I prefer not to say’ or ‘I prefer another term’ under the gender section. 2.9% of undergraduates admitted in 2024 opted for one of these, considerably higher than the 0.2% national average that did so at other UK universities.

At the college level, disparities were more marked. In particular, state school students varied significantly between colleges, with the highest being 93.7% at Mansfield (which has topped this ranking every year since the reports began), and the lowest being 55.6% at Pembroke. Oriel and New (both 56.5%) were also particularly low on this metric.

🖊️ Noah Robson

Image Credit: Noah Robson for Cherwell

Read the full story online at Cherwell.org

20/06/2025

We’re often told that a year abroad in Europe is meant to be the time of our lives. It can be both intellectually enriching and personally fulfilling to spend a year in a foreign country, learning a new language and connecting with a different culture.

As someone who spent a year doing just that, I can tell you that in many ways, I learned more during those twelve months away from Oxford than in the two years I spent there. I picked up rowing, learned Dutch, and explored areas of my discipline that were not on offer back home.

But for some of us, that’s not the whole picture. Because when you’re abroad and visibly different, even the most mundane experiences – like buying fish at a market – can turn into moments of confrontation, confusion, or fear.

This year, even though I was technically living in the Netherlands, I found myself back in Oxford more often than I expected. Partly because I missed my friends: many of them are graduating this summer, and I wanted to spend more time with them before they left. But there was another reason, one I don’t usually talk about.

As a person of colour, I found living in the Netherlands unexpectedly difficult.

🖊️ Peter Chen

Image Credit: Emily Henson with permission for Cherwell

Read the full story online at Cherwell.org

20/06/2025

St Catherine’s College spent over £3.4 million in less than one year due to ongoing concrete issues, Cherwell can reveal.

Catz spent £2.4 million on “temporary measures”, which was deducted from the College’s revenue account. The temporary measures that were put in place in 2023 include the marquees that currently house the bar and dining hall. The College also spent £1 million on capital expenditure, which includes long-term, physical assets like buildings.

The College’s Contribution Scheme has contributed £1.04 million over four years to mitigate the expenditure, though Cherwell understands that the predicted costs are fluctuating daily. Catz told Cherwell: “The total cost of the works depends on the scope and scale … which is being developed as the project progresses, with the intention to bring the College’s buildings back into operation as soon as is practicable.”

🖊️ Amelia Gibbins

Image Credit: Kenneth Wong for Cherwell

Read the full story online at Cherwell.org

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